Alternating Currents Read online

  I looked for a larger scope. I spread the whole panoply of the heavens across the screen of die tape machine. I sought out the crook of the Big Dipper’s handle, traced its arc across half the heavens until I located orange Arcturus. Then I zoomed in on the star, as littler stars grew larger and hurtled out of range around it, sought its seventy grey-green planets and located number five among them, the watery world that Knafti had spawned upon. I bade the computing mind inside the tape machine reconstruct the events of the orbit bombing for me, and watched hell-bombs splash enormous mushrooms of poisonous foam into the Arcturan sky, whipping the island cities with tidal waves and drowning them in death.

  Then I destroyed the whole planet. I turned Arcturus into a nova and watched the hot driven gases sphere out to embrace the planet, boil its seas, slag its cities ... and found myself sweating. I ordered another drink from die dispenser and switched the machine off. And then I became aware that the pale blue light over the door to Haber’s office was glowing insistently. It was time; my visitors had arrived.

  ~ * ~

  Connick had brought his kids along, three of them; the lover from Donnegan General had brought two more; Knafti and Colonel Peyroles had Timmy Brown. ‘Welcome to Romper Room,’ I said. ‘They’re making lynch mobs young this year.’

  They all yelled at me at once - or all but Knafti, whose tweeting chitter just didn’t have the volume to compete. I listened, and when they showed signs of calming down I reached into fat-cat Haber’s booze drawer and poured myself a stiff one and said, ‘All right, which of you creeps wants first crack?’ And they boiled up again while I drank my drink. All of them, except Candace Harmon, who only stood by the door and looked at me.

  So I said, ‘All right, Connick, you first. Are you going to make me spread it all over the newscasts that you had a dishonourable discharge? ... And by the way, maybe you’d like to meet my assistant blackmailer; Miss Harmon over there dug up the dirt on you.’

  Her boyfriend yelped, but Candace just went on looking. I didn’t look back, but kept my eyes on Connick. He squinted his eyes, put his hands in his pockets and said, with considerable self-restraint, ‘You know I was only seventeen years old when that happened.’

  ‘Oh, sure. I know more. You had a nervous breakdown the year after your discharge, space cafard, as they call it on the soapies. Yellow fever is what we called it on the Moon.’

  He glanced quickly at his kids, the two that were his own and the one that was not, and said rapidly: ‘You know I could have had that DD reversed—‘

  ‘But you didn’t. The significant fact isn’t that you deserted. The significant fact is that you were loopy. And, I’d say, still are.’

  Timmy Brown stuttered: ‘One moment. I, Knafti, have asked that you cease—’

  But Connick brushed him aside. “Why, Gunnarsen?’

  ‘Because I intend to win this election. I don’t care what it costs - especially what it costs you.’

  ‘But, I, Knafti, have instructed—’ That was Timmy Brown trying again.

  ‘The Armistice Commission issued orders—’ That was Peyroles.

  ‘I don’t know which is worse, you or the bugs!’ And that was Candace’s little friend from the hospital, and they all were talking at once again. Even Knafti came dragging towards me on his golden slug’s belly, chirruping and hooting, and Timmy Brown was actually weeping as he tried to tell me I was wrong, I had to stop, the whole thing was against orders and why wouldn’t I desist ?

  I shouted: ‘Shut up, all of you!’

  They didn’t, but the volume level dropped minutely. I rode over it: ‘What the hell do I care what any of you want? I’m paid to do a job. My job is to make people act a certain way. I do it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be paid to make them act the opposite way, and I’ll do that, too. Anyway, who the hell are you to order me around? A stinkbug like you, Knafti? A GI quack like yourself, Whitling? Or you, Connick. A—’

  ‘A candidate for public office,’ he said clearly. And I give him much mana; he didn’t shout, but he talked right over me. ‘And as such I have an obligation—’

  But I out-yelled him anyway. ‘Candidate! You’re a candidate right up till the minute I tell the voters you’re a nut, Connick. And then you’re dead! And I will tell them, I promise, if—’

  I didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence, because all three of Connick’s kids were diving at me, his own two and the other one. They sent papers flying off Haber’s desk and smashed his sand-crystal decanter; but they didn’t get to my throat, where they clearly were aimed, because Connick and Timmy Brown dragged them back. Not easily.

  I allowed myself a sneer. ‘And what does that prove? Your kids like you, I admit - even the one from Mars. The one that Knafti’s people used for vivisection - that Knafti himself worked over, likely as not. Nice picture, right? Your bug-buddy there, killing babies, destroying kids ... or didn’t you know that Knafti himself was one of the boss bugs on the baby-killing project?’

  Timmy Brown shrieked wildly, ‘You don’t know what you are doing. It was not Knafti’s fault at all!’ His ashen face was haggard, his rotten teeth bared in a grimace. And he was weeping.

  ~ * ~

  If you apply heat to a single molecule it will take off like a torn with a spark under his tail, but you cannot say where it will go. If you heat a dozen molecules they will fling out in all directions, but you still do not know which directions they will be. If, however, you heat a few billion, about as many as are in a thimble of dilute gas, you know where they will go: they will expand. Mass action. You can’t tell what a single molecule may do - call it the molecule’s free will, if you like -but masses obey mass laws. Masses of anything; even so small a mass as the growling troop that confronted me in Haber’s office. I let them yell, and all the yelling was at me. Even Candace was showing the frown and the darkening of the eyes and the working of the lips, although she watched me as silently and steadily as ever.

  Connick brought it to a head: ‘All right, everybody,’ he yelled, ‘now listen to me! Let’s get this thing straightened out!’

  He stood up, a child gripped by each elbow and the third, the youngest, trapped between him and the door. He looked at me with such loathing that I could feel it - and didn’t like it, either, although it was no more than I had expected, and he said: ‘It’s true. Sammy, here, was one of the kids from Mars. Maybe that has made me think things I shouldn’t have thought - he’s my kid now, and when I think of those stink-bugs cutting—’

  He stopped himself and turned to Knafti. ‘Well, I see something. A man who would do a thing like that would be a fiend. I’d cut his heart out with my bare hands. But you aren’t a man.’

  Grimly he let go of the kids and strode towards Knafti. ‘I can’t forgive you. God help me, it isn’t possible. But I can’t blame you - exactly - any more than I can blame lightning for striking my house. I think I was wrong. Maybe I’m wrong now. But - I don’t know what you people do - I’d like to shake your hand. Or whatever the hell it is you’ve got there. I’ve been thinking of you as a perverted murderer and a filthy animal, but I’ll tell you right now, I’d rather work together with you - for your base, for peace, for whatever we can get together on - than with some human beings in this room!’

  I didn’t stay to watch the tender scene that followed.

  I didn’t have to, since the cameras and tape recorders that the studio people had activated for me behind every one-way mirror in the room would be watching for me. I could only hope they had not missed a single word or scream, because I didn’t think I could do that scene over again.

  I opened the door quietly and left. And as I was going I caught the littlest Connick kid sneaking past me, headed for the 3-V set in the waiting room, and snaked out an arm to stop him. ‘Stinker!’ he hissed. ‘Rat fink!’

  ‘You may be right, I told him, ‘but go back and keep your father company. You’re in on living history today.’

  “Nuts! I always
watch Dr Zhivago on Monday nights, and it’s on in five minutes and—’

  ‘Not tonight it isn’t, son. You can hold that against me, too. We preempted the time for a different show entirely.’

  I escorted him back into the room, closed the door, picked up my coat and left.

  ~ * ~

  Candace was waiting for me with the car. She was driving it herself.

  ‘Will I make the nine-thirty flight?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure, Gunner.’ She steered on to the autotraffic lane, put the car on servo and dialled the scatport, then sat back and lit a cigarette for each of us. I took it and looked morosely out the window.

  Down below us, on the slow-traffic level, we were passing a torchlight parade, with floats and glee clubs and free beer at the major pedestrian intersections. I opened the glove compartment and took out field glasses, looked through them—

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to check up, Gunner. I took care of it. They’re all plugging the programme.’

  ‘I see they are.’ Not only were the marchers carrying streamers that advertised our present show, that was now already beginning to be on the air, but the floats carried projection screens and amplifiers. You couldn’t look anywhere in the procession without seeing Knafti, huge and hideous in his gold carapace, clutching the children and protecting them against the attack of that monster from another planet, me. The studio people had done a splendid job of splicing in no time at all. The whole scene was there on camera, as real as I had just lived it.

  ‘Want to listen?’ Candace fished out and passed me a hyper-boloid long-hearer, but I didn’t need it. I remembered what the voices would be saying. There would be Connick denouncing me. Timmy Brown denouncing me. The kids denouncing me, all of them. Colonel Peyroles, denouncing me; Commander Whitling, denouncing me; even Knafti - denouncing me. All that hate and only one target.

  Me.

  ‘Of course, Junior’ll fire you. He’ll have to, Gunner.’

  I said, ‘I need a vacation anyway.’ It wouldn’t matter. Sooner or later, when the pressure was off, Junior would find a way to hire me back. Once the lawsuits had been settled. Once the Armistice Commission could finish its work. Once I could be put on the payroll inconspicuously, at an inconspicuous job in an inconspicuous outpost of the firm. With an inconspicuous future.

  We slid over the top of a spiralling ramp and down into the parking bays of the scatport. ‘So long, honey,’ I said, ‘and Merry Christmas to you both.’

  ‘Oh, Gunner! I wish—’

  But I knew what she really wished and I wouldn’t let her finish. I said, ‘He’s a nice fellow, Whitling. And you know? I’m not.’

  I didn’t kiss her goodbye.

  The scatjet was ready for boarding. I fed my ticket into the check-in slot, got the green light as the turnstile clicked open, entered the plane and took a seat on the far side, by the window.

  You can win any cause if you care to pay the price. All it takes is one human sacrifice.

  By the time the scatjet began to roar, to quiver and to turn on its axis away from the terminal I had faced the fact that that price once and for all was paid. I saw Candace standing there on the roof of the loading dock, her skirts whipped by the back-blast. She didn’t wave to me, but she didn’t go away as long as I could see her standing on the platform.

  Then, of course, she would go back to her job and ultimately on Christmas morning to that nice guy at the Hospital. Haber would stay in charge of his no-longer-important branch office. Connick would win his campaign. Knafti would transact his incomprehensible business with Earth; and if any of them ever thought of me again it would be with loathing, anger, and contempt. But that is the way to win an election. You have to pay the price. It was just the breaks of the game that the price of this one was me.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  The Ghost-Maker

  Mr Guinn was an amiable man but an alert one. Nevertheless, I had no difficulty in getting from him what I wanted. I had never thought of myself as a shrewd businessman, able to trick and extort; but obviously the foul treatment the Museum had given me had sharpened my wits, made me able to gain a victory where I chose. My credentials from the Museum - still, as far as he knew, perfectly valid - were most helpful, and I suppose that what finally decided him was my promise of the Museum’s mailing list in exchange for his. Naturally, I had no objection to making him that promise. I would have promised him Walter, the ninety-foot stuffed whale, and all fourteen meteorites out of the entrance hall if he had asked for them. It cost me nothing, after all.

  At any rate, I had the subscription list to Beyond.

  Magazines like Beyond do not have the enormous lists of the smooth-paper giants of the publishing world; the list Guinn gave me was quite small enough to be workable. And when I made the obvious deletions - striking out all the saints’ names, all the addresses like Christchurch, Trinity Place and so on; all the names like Gottesman, Dorothy and their blessed etymological equivalents - I was down to a mere page. I packed my toothbrush, the holy water and such other items as I absolutely needed, and set out.

  ~ * ~

  The first three or four names on the list were blanks. I waited an afternoon on the lower East Side and the better part of a day in Bensonhurst without turning up anyone over the age of fourteen. I was beginning to wonder if my theory, after all, was valid, when I began to approach pay dirt: name number five, a water-witch in Chelsea; number eight, a red-bearded old necromancer in a monstrous old house on the Jersey shore; number ten, a part-time ghoul who taught biochemistry in a New England university . . . and was the idol of the cleaning ladies because he never left messy bits of cadaver on his workbench. It was, they joked with him, as if he ate the corpses, he was so neat.

  I think that I didn’t even need the cross or the holy water for these; the shock of confrontation, the realization that they had been tracked down where they thought they were un-findable, was enough. From each I took one thing, as the laws provide. A charm from the witch, a perfectly disgusting recipe from the ghoul; from the necromancer, a curious variation on the crystal ball, an opaque sphere that answered questions - opaquely. None of these were of any great value, but my theory was confirmed, and besides I learned a great deal from their reactions. I felt confident that when the one I sought turned up, I could handle him.

  By Friday evening I was two hundred miles from the city, across the line from Pennsylvania, feeling as calmly certain of success as any man can feel. The next name on my list was number thirteen - happy omen! I had been looking forward to it, and when I saw the house I was doubly encouraged. I paid off the driver and, kicking rusted cans and torn copies of The Nation out of my way, reached the front door just at dusk.

  No one answered my knock. I tried again, ignoring the fact that the door gave every indication of being on the point of collapse, and thumped it hard. No answer. This was in no way a disappointment; I had discovered early that, in my present occupation, it was best to learn as much as possible about the quarry before meeting them face to face.

  I took the ball from my pocket and asked it if the person who inhabited the house would return within ten minutes. The ball’s answer was, ‘According to my information, no’, which was about as satisfactory as it could be, for there was a strong implication that the ball’s prophecy was hampered by opposing strong forces.

  For safety, I allowed myself but five minutes to survey the house. It was an ancient frame structure, a potbellied stove in every room, sunset light filtering through cracks in the walls. The cellar was ankle-deep in mushrooms, and it appeared that the occupant of the house had been systematically tunnelling away the foundations. The indications were most promising.

  I think, even now, that it is best if I don’t mention the man’s name. He was so clearly that which I sought that I paced the floor waiting for him: It seemed hours, but there was still an aura of sunset in the sky when I heard him at the door.

  He was a
stonished to see me sitting in his living-room, but at once he knew what I wanted. The overnight bag, with its flask of holy water and other useful items, was by my hand; he pretended to ignore it, but I observed that he brought up short at the door.

  ‘Hell,’ he said bitterly. ‘Even here.’

  I chuckled. ‘Yes, even here,’ I said. ‘Shall we get down to business ? Or would you like to pretend that you don’t know why I came?’

  He smiled weakly. It was curious to see the pointed teeth in that round, mild face. ‘I might as well own up,’ he said. ‘You’ve got me. There are only two reasons why you would have tracked me down with all that stuff in your bag. One of them obviously doesn’t apply; if you were going to try to reform me, you wouldn’t be wasting time in talk. Therefore you want something. All right. One thing, though, if you don’t mind. How’d you locate me ?’

  I could afford to be casual. ‘Simple,’ I said. ‘Elementary deduction. Farmers read Country Gentleman; bankers read the Wall Street Journal. There aren’t very many magazines dealing with magic and diablerie, after all. It would have been a lot more difficult to believe that magicians and diabolists would not subscribe to Beyond. All I did was eliminate the casual readers. You and your friends were left.’